


Plucked Strings

by More_night



Category: Hannibal (TV), House M.D.
Genre: But then its weird when you tag a House fic for cannibalistically sadistic mind-manipulation, Gen, I just hope this vibe somehow takes, Its weird when you tag a Hannibal fic for swearing, Warning: may or may not be humorous, pairings are implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-01 12:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10189811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/More_night/pseuds/More_night
Summary: House needs a psych eval. Surprisingly, no one dies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set in season one for Hannibal, roughly in the Sorbet (1x07) sector. Set in mid season two for House M.D. - a short while after Need to Know (2x11).

“Pick one, House.”

“He didn’t even break a rib,” House said, pushing at the chair’s back with the rubber tip of his cane.

“You pushed a patient-…”

“Stumbled on him. Alle-…”

“Alle _gorically_.” Cuddy sat down. “Pick.”

He was about to tip the chair over now. And the potted plant on the coffee table. Probably the coffee table too. Cuddy was still holding out the list. “It was definitely not violent,” he said.

“Pick one.”

House stared at the list of names while still manning his cane with the right one. “Oh, you get to pick the prices too?” he said. “So psychiatrists are not only failed doctors and overrated pretend-friends…” The chair fell, the table veered comically for a moment, but the plant was already down, the pot in pieces and the soil scattered. “They should list their services. Because I wanna know if whatever I can get for $500.00 involves leather.”

Cuddy was staring at the broken furniture. “It’s per hour,” she said.

House was looking at the list again. “Then I know just the one,” he said, cocking his head. He sent the paper to fly back on Cuddy’s desk. She was picking up the clay pieces from the pot. For a moment, he considered making a comment about it, but then Cuddy would lash back about his broken heart, or well, whatever. He fetched Vicodin from his pocket.

“Go and see Georgia in legal. Don't forget to take the form with you.”

 

* * *

 

At first, House thought being in Baltimore was a good thing. Pro: he would be away from Wilson trying to get him to admit he was thinking about Stacy. Con: the last time he had been in Baltimore, it was with Stacy. When he got in the cab, it was all pros again, because he would find out what was a shrink that charged almost one thousand dollars a hour.

As it turned out, it was a tall man, with a European accent to go with his European name, wearing a suit worth at least the price of his car. When he had bought it. “Dr. Gregory House,” Dr. Lecter greeted, holding the door open, extending a hand to invite him in instead of offering it for a shake. “Please come in.”

House held his eyes as he crossed the doorway, then took in the warm red walls, the books on the upper levels, the framed engravings and, he blinked, the – yes – harpsichord in the corner. “Is all this stuff for real, or are you just posing as the rich aristocrat to justify billing people an insane amount of money to tell them what they already know?”

Dr. Lecter didn’t try something as gross as to stare him down. But his back stiffened a bit. House’s eyes went to it. Good posture muscles, meant a gymnast or a dancer, or a yoga-fan, or a corset-wearing man, and Dr. Lecter looked the type, or he was just constipated which, given the cosmically ordered state of his desk and the cleanliness of the room, was most likely the case, if only metaphorically. “It’s very much for real. Eighth Count in the Lecter lineage,” he said, amicable, polite, humored. And now House was interested. “Did you select me based on my hourly rate?”

“As a matter of fact, I did, since I’m not paying.” House shrugged off his coat and draped it over the back of one of the two leather armchairs and noticed the psychiatrist’s eye on his leg and cane. “And is this fancy title of yours still connected to some dreamy, impoverished estate of… Ukraine?” he tried.

Lecter sat down. “Close enough: Lithuania.”

“Gee. I hear we have real universities in this country, though. Most psychiatrists are usually false doctors, but you could even be a fake, low-grade false doctor.”

“I could indeed, if I had not attended Johns Hopkins medical school.”

“Charming.”

“Do you despise the psychiatric profession because you’ve seen a lot of psychiatrists or too little of them?” Lecter asked, unbuttoning his jacket to lean back into his seat.

“Do you even play it?” House asked, his back pointedly turned to the harpsichord in the corner.

“I do. Is there a reason you’re deflecting?”

“Yes, a patient got his feelings hurt and my employer wants _me_ to talk to someone about it. Can you answer me with something that’s not a question?”

“Yes, I can. But then I wouldn’t learn anything.”

“You don’t need questions and answers to know someone. I didn’t.”

Lecter smiled. “You don’t know me,” he said. “And I agree, questions and answers are not required. But reactions to this mode of conversation are more interesting to observe. For instance, if I ask you when was the infarction in your leg, I’ll observe you trying to avoid questioning me on how I know,” Lecter delivered smoothly.

House tilted his head and watched Lecter openly. “Bum legs can be a lot of things,” he started. “In deducing, disjunctive pairs are usually the way to go. You figured it was old rather than ancient, because I’m used to the cane. You figured it was a medical event rather than an accident, because I didn’t rush to explain it. From there, you pretty much just guessed the infarct.”

“There’s also a slight depression in the movement of your right hip when you limp. Indicates the inability to use the  _rectus femoris_. A good candidate for blood clots-…”

“Probabilistically, due to its large size,” House finished. “And you did guess it.” He reached for his Vicodin, popped one in his palm, slapped his hand to his mouth. “Do you bring this real doctor stuff up to prove your worth or do you seriously _remember_ the Latin from med school?”

“No reason it can’t be both,” the other man said with a quiet chuckle, before getting up. “Do you want to indulge in a bit of chronic alcoholism to pair with that painkiller addiction of yours?”

“Please,” House nodded, tilting his head slightly down to the swarms of the carpet and the fancy everythingness in here. “You must be delightful at parties.”

“No one has ever lived and complained.”

Lecter returned with two glasses of brandy, which House knew to be the stuff that’s good enough not to be called stuff, because there was no bite at all.

“The incident that brings you here. Were you high when it happened?”

House looked down at his glass. The room hummed with Vicodin softness. “I’m always high.”

“I doubt it.”

“I’m way more agreeable with the pills than without,” House rephrased.

“Is the pain pulsating or radiating?”

“Depends when.”

“Does your employer think it affects your judgment?”

“No. My employer’s bitchy lawyer thinks it does.”

“And I suppose said bitchy lawyer has given you a form for me to fill out to assess your mental health?”

House took the folded, crumpled form from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it over, watching as Lecter filled it out on the glass table beside his chair with nothing as gross as a Montblanc pen, but probably pricier. House turned around, nursing his glass, and walked to the nearest wall, trying to stretch the pain in his leg. It swirled, heaved and breathed, up and again, again and again.

“All done,” Lecter said, handing him the form.

Now that was weird. “There’s no way you read that through.”

“I didn’t. I did sign it though.”

“Something’s not right.”

“How so?”

House shook his head. “You don’t fit.” His eyes went to the walls. The Oriental inks. The (dusted) book shelves. The impeccably geometrical setting. The not-nice-but-extraordinarily-nice guy act. “Are you the nerd trying to be cool by breaking the rules?”

“You’ve excluded the possibility that I genuinely don’t care for rules?”

“No, actually.” House walked closer. “I wonder what rules you do follow,” he said slowly.

Lecter smiled courteously. “Please,” he gestured to the armchair. “Sit down, rest your leg. No need to stand on principle,” he said with a fine smile, before walking to his desk, ceremonial, measured steps, calculated rituals.

House stayed on his feet, leaning on his cane. Tilted his head at the proportionally piled books on the desk, the aligned pens, the polished surface where the light sparkled. “You are aware you’ve got a couple of OCDs, right?”

The psychiatrist looked up as he sat down, hand on his stomach, fingers aligned, straight, parallel to the floor. He placed a pen on the exact center of a notebook and said, “I am aware. Just on the same level as you are aware of your drug addiction.”

House nodded in fake connivance. “So, we’ll now settle for collusive silence?”

“Or we can keep talking. It’s just as you want.”

“I thought talking was you guys’ job?”

“My job is to make sure my patients get what they need. You needed a signature. I provided that.”

Leaning sideways on his cane, House worked his jaw, before his eyes came to rest on the harpsichord. “Mind if I try that?”

A look of visible displeasure crossed Lecter’s face and House enjoyed every second of it. “Be my guest,” the psychiatrist said.

 

* * *

 

He hated the plucked strings sound. Then the keyboard was too narrow. Then, when he pressed them, the keys resisted - then sort of clutched - then sunk in a weird way. When Gallows Pole sounded horrible, he tried a bit of Rosemary Lane. It was possibly worse. And _seriously_ the plucked strings.

So, eventually, he switched to Bach, which was better, if not by much.

“So. What is it with the whole act thing?”

Lecter had not moved from where he sat. If he was tense, it was hidden in the general straightness of his body. For now, he flicked tabs open on a tablet and occasionally stopped to write down a note in a Moleskine notebook. “Most of our social life is an act, Dr. House. The ways in which we interact are but the parts of a play in which actors are so numerous, it’s hard to believe they could all be playing. But they are.”

“Oh, Jesus. Are you a kind of God-is-the-author-of-the-script-of-our-lives guy?”

“Not God. But only the best of us, certainly, are able to get behind the stage.”

House stopped playing. Sighed. Made it audible. “Okay. What’s the stage?”

“Everything.”

“What’s behind everything?”

“More everything.”

Tapping his cane on the ground to the rhythm of the notes he should have been playing now, House looked up. “If that’s making any sense, then I’ve read the whole internet. Twice.”

Close to the door as he was, House heard the distant thud of the outside door opening and closing. His eyes went to the windows. It was well into the night. His appointment was at 7 PM, in all likelihood the last one in the day. It was close to 8 PM now. Dr. Lecter had heard it as well, but had not shown another sign of doing so than straightening his waist jacket. Someone known, then. Someone expected. Someone hoped for.

“It’s not a patient. I’m your last appointment.” House started thinking out loud. “It’s not your wife. You’d be the type to wear the ring if you had any.”

Lecter adjusted the cuff on his right shirt sleeve, so that it didn’t stick more than a centimeter out of his jacket sleeve. “It’s a friend.”

“Who comes to your office instead of your house?...”

“It is a possibility.”

Steps stopped outside the office door and there were three quiet knocks against the wood. House cocked his head. “A friend who knocks? No way.” He was getting up. “This is someone special alright, but it ain’t a friend. I’m thinking of something else.” Lecter had gotten up, but House stood between him and the door. “Please. Allow me.”

When House opened the door, he found a younger man standing there. Late thirties, early forties tops. Curled dark hair, thick glasses and blue eyes that did not meet House’s, not exactly, but that scrutinized him too. They stood mutely on both sides of the doorway for a few seconds. Finally, House pivoted toward Dr. Lecter. He stood back and pointed at Will Graham with his cane. “You’re banging him?” he said. “I mean, okay, there’s probably a nicer word for it. But just so you know, he’s below you. Or maybe that’s the excitement.”

“I didn’t think you were with a patient,” Will said to Hannibal. His face had gone entirely blank.

“This appointment is over. Please come in, Will. Dr. House was just leaving,” Hannibal said, as polite as a clear, winter-blue sky.

“My plane’s in a few hours actually. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

“Surely, you can wait at the airport.”

“And miss out on all the action?” House rolled his eyes.

Lecter pursed his lips and Will eyed House before walking in cautiously. “My apologies, Will. It was a last-minute appointment,” Hannibal said.

“You don’t do last-minute appointments,” Will said, taking in Dr. House’s coat still draped over the patient chair, the pulled back bench before the harpsichord.

“Dr. House’s employer, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, is a friend from medical school. She asked for it as a favor. Which I granted.” _Regrettably_ went unsaid.

“I’ll have to talk to Cuddy about her social circles,” House quipped.

“The world is never as small and familiar as it is when caught between an inappropriate remark and an insecure pun,” Lecter said.

“Actually, I’ll have to make fun of her forever about her social circles.”

In the pocket of his jacket, House’s cellphone buzzed. He took it out, looked at it, ended the call and slipped it back.

“It’s amazing that someone could want to talk with you,” Will noted, nodding to the phone-shaped bump in House’s pocket. “Or is the aggressive social behavior reserved exclusively for strangers you cannot use medical authority on?”

“You a shrink too?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“And I’m socially unpleasant with everyone. Displeasure is more interesting.”

“That’s not even remotely true,” Will said.

“I suppose you call avoiding every possible form of eye contact normal social interaction?” House said, sitting down on the patient chair’s arm, one hand to his leg, feeling the tendrils of pain as they stretched out into his feet.

“I avoid social interaction. It’s almost always simpler.” Will stiffened, leaning back against the edge of Hannibal’s desk. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, clutched the desk, then put them in his pocket, then out again.

House’s eyes went to the psychiatrist, who had returned to his chair and now gazed at the tip of his shoe, somewhat grim, then back to Will. “Furthers my point,” he said, eventually, eyes still on Will.

“What point?” Will asked.

“Dr. House asked me why you were coming here if you were not a patient. I told him you were a friend, but it wasn’t to his satisfaction,” Hannibal explained.

Pointing at the desk, House replied, “No way you’d let even your friends sit on your stuff like that. Way too anal.”

“I wouldn’t let my acquaintances do that. But my friends, yes,” Lecter objected.

In House's pocket, the phone buzzed again. Drawn back, Will looked at him flicking it open, checking the caller ID, and putting it back in his pocket.

“And that is the same caller as before,” Will said.

“You must be psychic or something,” House said.

Will pulled off his glasses slowly. House would have thought it was for effect if his hand weren’t shaking. Will’s eyes were a different blue, with green and gray flecks in the iris. “Yeah. Well, watch this,” he said. “You’re obnoxious. And you’re high. And you’re scared. Lonely. You don’t want people to know that, because no one does, because walking your darkness around is somehow still too repulsive. Has the sticky texture of need all over it.”

For a while, House just stared back up at him. “And what is it that you _do,_ Will?”

At this point, Will could have offered his hand. He put his glasses back on his nose. “Graham,” he said. “I profile serial killers and I teach about it.”

“Fancy.” House took another Vicodin.

Will shrugged. “It’s got a kind of bizarre wickedness, I suppose.”

“Also useless. People are easy to understand, once you figure it out. Killers are just like the others. Living their own misery, thinking they’ll get themselves out of it by trespassing the oldest, most basic law of gregariousness.”

Lecter got up smoothly, buttoning his jacket. “Dr. House, I believe I’ve been lenient. Please tone it down, or I will have to invite you to leave.” His voice had dropped to a particular low.

Hand clasped over his thigh, House frowned at the slim man facing him. Something had happened in his body language. Something very subtle. In the muscles tensing. His tone had a detachment, ill-matched to the coolness of the stance. “Did you see that?” he asked Will.

Graham’s eyes traveled up from the floor to House’s face, stopping somewhere near the brow. “You piss people off. I’m sure you’re aware.”

House’s mind was still trying to track down the minute change he had seen hover over the psychiatrist’s features. But it was gone and everything was smooth again. He turned back to Will. “Either you did see it and you don’t care, or you didn’t and it doesn’t fit with how well you just read me.”

His phone buzzed again. House sighed.

“There are two motives that prompt such insistence,” Will started, stiffly professor-ish. “Either it’s someone very angry with you, and in that case, you’d pick it up, because you’d welcome it. Or it’s the person you cling to so that you aren’t entirely alone. Because that’s what you can’t deal with.”

“You’re autistic. Or...” House cocked his head. “Maybe not. But there’s some heavy mirroring at work here. You’re channeling _me_.”

Will wiped the small spot of sweat that had accumulated on his brow. “It’s a degree of empathy more elevated than in most,” he explained, warily. “And channeling is actually a good description.”

House’s eyes did not leave him. He was not listening anymore. “How long have you had the fever?”

“It’s stress.”

“No, it’s not.” House moved closer, noticing how Graham moved slightly backwards, not exactly the typical social anxiety. Too obvious. Not exactly arrogance either. Too much patent self-loathing. “Other symptoms?”

Graham shook his head, stared at Lecter once, quickly. Obviously, it had been a topic of conversation before. “Headaches. Nightmares.” He hesitated. “Vivid absences.”

Arching his eyebrows, House did not ask him what he meant by that. The infection was fairly visible, its source less so, and the absences were probably a requirement in his whatever-it-exactly-was line of work. “You have pets?”

Will frowned, looking somewhere between righteously offended and suddenly murderous. Okay. So the pets were precious. “Seven. Dogs.”

“Seven?”

“Yes.”

House shrugged, stepped back. “You have an infection. It’s probably skin-based. There must be a rash somewhere on you. Have your dogs checked for fleas, ticks, parasites.”

“I have no rash of any kind. And my dogs are healthy.”

House puffed his cheeks. “No, they’re not. The reason we Humans are cooler is because we don’t eat our own poop.”

There were three soft knocks on the door.

While Lecter went to the door, House searched his mind, but couldn’t really think of a joke with Will’s eyes attached to him, deadly cold. It wasn’t to elicit a reaction, like Cameron would, not to try and impress, like Cuddy would, not to warn either. So, just to creep out, apparently.

Okay. The dogs were really really precious.

“Dr. Wilson.” House closed his eyes, hearing Lecter’s greeting. Was worse and wors _er_ a thing?

A pause on Wilson’s side. “Dr. Lecter. I’m amazed you remembered.” They shook hands.

The smile and glaze of politeness had returned to Dr. Lecter’s face. “The Neuropsychology Congress in Chicago.”

“In 2001. We barely spoke,” Wilson said, in the voice that sounded slightly disbelieving and that House knew was actually not believing at all.

Lecter’s smile widened. Frank. Open. Trust me. You can’t afford not to now that I know all about you. “I have a good memory. Especially of friendly encounters.”

Wilson chuckled wryly. “A very good memory.”

“Please, come in.”

“I’m really sorry to intrude,” Wilson said, stepping in. “But Dr. House has a problem with his phone. Whenever he’s in Baltimore, it stops working.” He had his coat undone and his scarf loose around his neck. His hair was messier than he liked it. He was probably on a rescue mission. “Just from the look on both your faces, I assume you were done and Dr. House was imposing?”

Lecter went to the desk, organized items idly. Will answered for him. “We were talking. It was fun.”

“I’m sure that’s not how most would describe it,” Wilson said, with a polite rise of eyebrows. He offered his hand to Will. “Dr. James Wilson.”

A fine purse of lips was all he got in return. And a curt, “Will Graham.”

Meanwhile, House had spotted a United Airways napkin, one of its corners peaking out of Wilson’s coat pocket. He hated to leave them in the next seat’s disposal pouch. Felt dirty and exploitive. “You were on a plane?...”

Wilson turned around, stuffed the napkin down. “That, _or_ I walked from New Jersey to Maryland.”

“Cuddy sent you to, what, supervise my therapy?”

“No,” Wilson rolled his eyes. “She sent me to... minimize the damage. She had an afterthought. And she was right.”

House tilted his head at Dr. Lecter. “She’s afraid I’ll insult the guy into hating her?”

“While that could definitely happen, Dr. Lecter also gives money to the psychiatry department.”

The scarf around Wilson’s neck was the pricier one, some white silk patterned in black paisley. He kept it in his office and House had only seen it at fundraisers. So he had left in a hurry. Possibly against his will. Money compels Cuddy. Cuddy compels Wilson. Et cetera. “A lot of money, I bet,” House understood. He turned to Dr. Lecter, who was now placidly sitting at his desk, behind the ever-towering figure of Graham. The psychiatrist gave a fine, agreeable smile.

“Yeah,” Wilson said.

Two cane taps to the floor. House nodded at Will. “While you’re here, you can tell him to get checked out by a real doctor,” he told Wilson.

It didn’t work: Wilson was buttoning up his coat. “Yes. I’ll help you deflect. That way you can cleverly avoid other topics such as the fact that your phone is closed. Or, more interestingly, that of all the places you could come for a psychological assessment, you came here. In Baltimore.”

“ _Or_ , he was the highest-priced shrink and I wanted to piss Cuddy off. Come on. I _actually_ do this all the time.”

Wilson’s dubiousness expanded with his humorless smile. “And none of this has anything to do with Stacy?”

“That would be – and has been for a while – my point, yes.”

Dr. Lecter’s voice came in for a quiet observation. “Dr. House, you didn’t tell me you already had a therapist.”

“I’m not-...” Wilson protested.

Graham’s eyes looked up at them. “It is a therapeutic relationship. Or, at least, a codependent one. Which furthers _my_ point.”

The oncologist frowned. “What point?”

“That you care about me,” House answered behind him. “Which he deduced from me not taking your calls and you keeping calling.”

Either the situation had reached a point of disaggregation very close to rupture, or Wilson finally began to take in the strangeness of how it could have gotten there without rupturing. He twirled a button on his coat as he thought. House watched him take in his surroundings. The warmth of the red walls. The blind darkened windows. He set his eyes back on Lecter and drew his hands to his chest in an overstated apology. “On behalf of the Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital and Lisa Cuddy, I’m really sorry.”

Before Lecter could open his mouth, House said, “You’re not sorry. You enjoy every bit of this.” He picked up his coat and walked up to Wilson.

Wilson stared back sternly. “I canceled all my afternoon appointments to book a plane ticket, fly here and have this argument here with you. Again. Do I exhibit any traits of joyfulness?”

“Well, you did do it,” Graham pointed out. “So no outright enjoyment, but probably some compensation.”

“See?” House said. “I’m not the only asshole in the place.”

Considering Graham, Wilson asked coolly: “Did you? Get checked by a doctor?”

“Stress. Am fine,” Graham repeated, on cue, slightly over-performing restrained exasperation.

The Vicodin had faded. House reached for his bottle. “He’s not. His dogs gave him a parasite, or an infection.” Lid. Hand. Mouth.

Wilson’s brow formed its polite, if distant arching of doctorly interest. “Seriously? No stomach pain, ear pain, skin rashes, sore joints?”

“Nothing except headaches and nightmares,” House said. “But it’s probably nothing. I mean, a lot of patients with no psych symptoms eventually find themselves in a psychiatrist’s office to talk about their strictly physical illnesses.”

Will eyed House. Coldly. Again. Wilson’s eyes shut and he attempted a last peace offer. “Stress is the most likely candidate,” he agreed. Then turned around. “House. Either you keep sitting here and we’re talking about Stacy, or we’re leaving.”

“We’re never talking about Stacy. You’re complaining about me not talking about Stacy.”

“Who’s Stacy?” Will asked.

“The love of his life,” Wilson explained. “Whom he pushed away recently. After convincing her to leave her husband for him.”

“Self-destructive behavior is coherent with addiction. By removing all sources of pleasure derivable from relationships, you solidify the acquired neuronic pathways reactive to dopamine and cement the need for alleviating measures,” Lecter lectured.

House rolled his eyes. “This is what happens when you tell other people’s secrets to strangers,” he told Wilson. “No wonder I’m your only friend.”

“You’re not my only friend, House.”

“Name one other. That isn’t an ex-wife or a colleague.”

“Encouraging others to alienate their other social relations is also typical of addicts. The only way you can communicate your own isolation is by driving others around you to replicate it, creating the impression – but only the impression – of being anti-social,” Graham expounded.

“Oh, look who’s talking, Mr. I behave like I’m the detachedly clever king of weird to hide whatever -ism is wrong with me-…” House started, moving toward Will.

Wilson stepped between them. “Okay. We’re leaving. Now.”

“Make me,” House said.

Wilson was actually faster than House would have thought, but maybe it was just luck. He lurched forward and swiftly removed House’s cane from his hand.

“Woh-woh… You can’t-...”

Wilson held on to the cane, walked to the door and opened it. “House. I’m tired, I’m hungry. I’m going to the airport, eating a sandwich and then going back home to sleep. And I’m taking your cane with me. So just do whatever you want and pretend not to care. As always.”

For a moment, House thought about what would happen if he stayed here. Graham probably wouldn’t go so far as to hit him. Or would he? Dr. Lecter solved the conundrum and stepped forward, perfectly graceful again. He shook Wilson’s hand. “Please, assure Lisa that everything is fine. I can’t wait to see her at next April’s fundraiser.”

Wilson gave a tight smile. “She knows how unpleasant Dr. House can be.”

“I’m sure she does,” Lecter agreed. “And unpleasant is not quite the word.”

“You slept with her,” House said.

“House,” Wilson warned.

But Lecter gave House his best smile. “Yes.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Lecter’s eye tingled. “Yes.”

Wilson chose this moment to leave. “Wilson,” House called. He tried moving away from the patient armchair he had been leaning on, but he knew his step would fail him. “Wilson!” The outside door closed.

Dr. Lecter offered House his arm. “Please. I’ll walk you out.”

House considered his options. There were none really. “Very kind of you.”

People often offered this, but it was usually awkward. He needed to put his whole weight on them at least half the time. Most of them stumbled. But Lecter did just fine. More than fine. He didn’t even flinch. The arm House held on felt like an anchor, unmovable muscle effortlessly holding straight.

At the door, Lecter paused. Outside, Wilson was on the sidewalk, waiting for the cab. “I’d recommend methadone,” the psychiatrist said.

House eyed him. “Would you?”

“You’ll be fine. Until you won’t,” Lecter said. “Methadone will be better for the pain.”

“It’s also dangerous and comes with a rehab program.”

“Self-administration is not recommended, but possible. I’ll prescribe it. Should you want it. No rehab.”

Lecter opened the door and led House to the first steps after the porch. “Thanks for the ride,” House said. “Why would you do that?”

A blow of wintery wind sent some of Dr. Lecter’s hair over his brow and around his head. For a moment, he seemed like some iconic impersonation. Whoever was the one doing the special effects and backstage tricks for Lecter, House did wish he could have a share. “Secrets are important. They allow us to cohere, and walk the Earth, solid enough to fake strength.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The cab arrived. Lecter gave a shake of his head. “Then don’t.” Lecter nodded toward Wilson. “Don’t take him down with you.”

“I won’t,” House said. “What’s your secret?”

Normally, it would have required a smile. But Lecter did seem to enjoy defy expectations. His face remained as closed as stone, as he said, “It wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

 

* * *

 

Dr. Lecter returned to his office to find Will Graham sitting down on the chaise, his bag at his feet. “Some days, it’s nice to know I’m not that twisted,” Will said. “Or, at least, I suppose I keep it to myself.”

“One of the advantages of being a psychiatrist is that one frequently encounters people who are much worse than themselves, on some level,” Hannibal said. He picked up Dr. House’s used glass of brandy and fetched a clean one for Will.

“I always start my classes by telling students that all of us have thought about killing someone. That it’s a really common thought.”

Hannibal brought back their glasses and sat down at the end of the chaise. “It is.”

Will drank in silence. “I guess what’s not as common is entertaining such thoughts with intricate vibrancy, regarding a specific individual.”

Night had settled in the office. The lamps gave a soft glow, barely enough to tell the shades from the shapes around them. “Then I’d be just as uncommon,” Hannibal said.

Will smiled at the ground. Hannibal’s own smile came as a quiet echo.

“You’re drinking on an empty stomach,” Hannibal pointed out after a time. The bitterness of the alcohol only brought forward the smell of stomach acid. “New case?”

Will nodded.

“Then we can talk about it after dinner,” Hannibal said. It was not the first time he had offered Will a meal, and Will had always refused.

But this time, something in the other man changed. It was hard to say if – whatever it was – it was finally giving up, or if it was something new that rose from the ruins. “Okay, fine. Dinner,” he said.

[tumblr](https://davantagedenuit.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Because who would write a methadone prescription for House in the first place - except someone who wants to screw him up some more? And, oh, who do we know who does that?
> 
> On [tumblr](https://davantagedenuit.tumblr.com/).


End file.
